Day #18: Living Traits

Today's prompt sprouts from J. Ruth Gendler's “The Book of Qualities.”

Gendler personifies traits such as this:

“Anxiety is secretive. He does not trust anyone, not even his friends, Worry, Terror, Doubt and Panic … He likes to visit me late at night when I am alone and exhausted. I have never slept with him, but he kissed me on the forehead once, and I had a headache for two years …”

Here are lines from other traits she examines:

Despair has “stopped listening to music.”

Courage “looks you straight in the eye…knows first aid…is not afraid to weep…has made the journey from loneliness to solitude”

Beauty “will dance with anyone brave enough to ask her.”

Excitement wears orange socks.

Pain’s “voice is hoarse from crying and screaming…if you face him directly, he will give you a special ointment so your wounds don’t fester.”

Anger “sharpens kitchen knives at the local supermarket on the last Wednesday of the month.”

Blame “keeps a pharmacist’s scale at the corner of his desk.”

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Your challenge is to personify a trait. You may write in prose-poem form or arrange your ideas on the page like a more traditional poem, as I did.  Here is a list of traits to choose from!

I chose "Strong."

Strong

You’ll meet Strong’s
public face first:
muscles in the gym
don’t mess with her.

Then you’ll meet her
softer side:
endurance through pain
speaking up
she’ll stand alone.

Then listen deeper
to hear
Strong’s silent self:
answering
to be
or not to be
with
Be.

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.